By John Stapleton
For more than 100 days in a row Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has held lengthy press conferences where he details the latest Covid stats and answers questions from a tame media pack.
This daily piece of theatre, where young and inexperienced journalists have acted as little more than channels for the state government’s propaganda machine, has placed Daniel Andrews front and centre of Australia’s Covid Fiasco.
Millions of Victorians remain under virtual house arrest. There have been shocking scenes on Melbourne’s streets of police smashing windows, dragging people out of cars, aggressively arresting pregnant women and violent harassment of any citizen who dares to protest Daniel Andrews’ rules. Many thousands of businesses face bankruptcy.
Despite all this Daniel Andrews has remained popular.
To the bemusement of the rest of the country, those daily press conferences worked for a self-aggrandising Premier, creating a sense of authority and an illusion of accountability.
It all worked, until one day it didn’t.
The arrival at those daily briefings of the formidable Peta Credlin, once Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and now one of Sky News most outspoken and popular anchors, has turned Daniel Andrews’ cosy little pressers into an instant nightmare.
At the same time Credlin’s aggressive questioning of the Premier has created spectacular footage and free publicity for Sky News, who have been vociferous critics of the Victorian lockdowns, the most draconian in the world.
There’s now an adult in the room. The take down has been sustained, vicious and forensic. There’s nothing Credlin doesn’t know about government processes.
As one punter observed: “Dan looks extremely uncomfortable when questioned by anyone older than 25.”
Credlin has predicted that Daniel Andrews will be gone by Christmas. He won’t last that long if she has anything to do with it.
Casualties already include Victoria’s Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and the state’s most senior bureaucrat Chris Eccles, both of whom have resigned in recent days under cloudy circumstances.
This week, after sustained questioning at Andrews’ press conference, Peta Credlin declared that the Victorian government has shown why truth matters, as without it, all that is left is a “gaggle of highly paid people with amnesia” running from responsibility.
Ms Credlin said she knows she speaks for “millions of Victorians tonight” when she says enough is enough.
“Without the truth, we the voters don’t get good government. We just get this gaggle of highly paid people with amnesia who run from responsibility when their bad decisions turn deadly”.
Credlin grilled Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews over why Mr Andrews’ Chief of Staff had not given evidence to the inquiry into Melbourne’s hotel quarantine debacle, from where most of the state’s Covid deaths can be traced.
“You say you set the inquiry up for transparency to get to the bottom of this, this would seem at odds with transparency, should your Chief of Staff provide evidence to the inquiry,” Ms Credlin asked the premier in the press conference.
She said the premier in trying to “wriggle out of responsibility” accused her of failing to read the next sentence in his press conference transcript when he announced private security guards would handle hotel quarantine.
“He claimed it showed no decision had been made,” Ms Credlin said. “No, Premier. Wrong. Your statement, ‘I’ll give you a fuller update tomorrow’ in no way shows that no decision had been made. “Cut the spin, tell the truth, cut the spin or go.”
The disintegration of Premier Daniel Andrews’ reputation demonstrates an old truism of Australian politics, you take on media mogul Rupert Murdoch at your peril.
We are witnessing an unmistakable power play.
All the considerable resources of News Limited are being brought to bear. Murdoch has 70% of Australia’s newspaper readership, and Credlin’s attacks have been accompanied by hard hitting columns in the nation’s mass readership tabloids.
She says she decided to take matters into her own hands and attend the press conferences herself because she couldn’t stand the spin a second longer.
Her influence is extended by the Sky News channel on YouTube and her professionally maintained Facebook page.
One typical comment from her fan base: “Peta Credlin you are simply THE best! A true heroine who with just one question has exposed the web of lies and flaws within the State government. Thank God for you.”
The recriminations over the mismanagement of Covid and the destruction of Australia’s economy have already begun.
Like her politics or not, and Credlin is unabashedly a Liberal Party insider, she has turned Daniel Andrews’ long and boring press conferences into must watch TV. Another Australian politician faces political extinction in a welter of scandal, and it makes fascinating viewing.
All of this comes as the entire Covid scare unravels, with senior epidemiologists around the world calling for lockdowns to stop. The only one not hearing their call is Daniel Andrews.
October 18, 2020 at 3:47 pm
Peta Credlin since Australia’s borders are controlled by the commonwealth why are you not asking the hard questions of ScoMO. Dan is doing the hard lifting and ScoMO has no plan other than to whine that Victoria should open up early without:
1. An alternative plan TO CONTROL ANY OUTBREAK
2. An emergency plan if an outbreak happens
3. assisting properly with border control
4. ensuring potential carriers get free access into Victoria
5. Testing at the point of entry
6. Declarations as to they will not leave NSW unless they quarantine for 14 days
7. Effective contact tracing at the point of entry
8. Assistance with costs caused by unapproved entries into Victoria
The PM takes cheap pot shots at Victoria and puts pressure on us to open up. Yet he offers no practical assistance, no ideas how to do it safely. Allows Kiwis to come into this country without so much as a temperature check and then expects the states to foot the bill and bear the brunt of any outbreak
Put it to the PM its easy taking cheap shots from the cheap seats with no responsibility
The start on the Aged care sector. Where are the policies and procedures, Who is charge, Who is funding the changes? What is Victoria getting in concrete aid. Why is the commonwealth not doing its job? When is the PM going to start pulling his weight on aged care? He has had a free ride by the right wing press in this country? Why? He is lazy, has done nothing, all he has done is blamed, deflected and pushed unsafe health and safety practices? Where is his plan to open up Australia? When will we see it? Why haven’t we got one? Why are Kiwis allowed in scot free and we are not in NZ? Why aren’t border patrol doing something to stop the spread. Why are they not paying their own quarantine fees and testing. Lazy, unprofessional and needs a good kick up the ass.
Time to put up or shut up. No one elected him the premier of Victoria. If people die will he take responsibility
So Peta you hammer Dan but don’t even ask the PM relevant questions and now we have Kiwis in WA. I think its time to provide a bit of balance.
Ask the hard questions. Where are the answers to the age care sector. Pretty easy to hammer the Premier who has bought the state back from the brink of catastrophe and be an echo chamber for the PM.
Our premier Is seen to be doing the right thing by 2/3s of the Victorian Electorate. Has a documented plan (even if you personally disagree)
Where are the PM’s ………..crickets…………. no help, no empathy, no systems and responsibility Sco Mo. Pontius Pilate could take lessons. You have to be careful as some people will think your bias is showing and demand that you interrogate the PM the same way you attack Dan. Otherwise that just leads to complaints to the press council etc.
How much airtime in the past three months have you spent grilling Dan? How many for the PM? How many questions to each? How many negative stories on Dan compared to the PM.
I think that’s an easy complaint to prove. How many times have you made unfound accusations towards the Victorian Premier? Have you apologized for these?
Have you declared your political bias either at the start or end of each program? Hmmmmmmm I am not sure.
Time to focus on real problems and the lazy and unprofessional federal government. Why can Kiwis come here no restrictions?
A bubble? It seems like a one way pipeline loaded in the Kiwis favour. Hmm a great question to ask you and the PM.
I got more questions but that will keep you busy and your bias will be the subject of complaint. It is obvious and disingenuous
So I expect to see a more even handed approach where the federal government is held to account by you or is that a bridge too far????????????
You have been hanging around some sort of “parrot” to long. As they say Birds of a feather flock together
Below is a picture of the Melbourne Tumultuantem Eolophus roseicapilla. It is known for its loud unending biased squawk and is much like a “parrot” in its aggressive and smug demeanour bullying all other birds within its range and as Mary Hardie said you can look that one up in your Funk and Wagnals’.
You should be ashamed letting the PM off the hook.
I believe it is not only right but it is the duty to hold all journalists to a standard they would seek to impose on others. You don’t accept left wing bias. And that as they say is an indictment. That is from the Oxford English Dictionary a thing that serves to illustrate that a system or situation is bad and deserves to be condemned.
Hoping to see you step up to the plate and have a crack at the PM for balance.
Kind Regards
Bill
October 22, 2020 at 12:37 am
No one over 25? Andrew Lund – state political reporter for Ch.9 after starting with Ch.7 in QLD back in 2002.
Rachel Baxendale at the Australian – hardly an inexperienced journo.
We could go on. The picture you’re tried to paint is well off the mark to start with.
October 22, 2020 at 12:45 am
Second point – take politics out of this and we’d like truthful reporting and a focus on the key points rather than made up points.
Credlin has been running with a “ALL other states did ‘X’ and Victoria did ‘Y'” narrative; she starts most her daily attacks with this regarding Hotel Quarantine.
If we got back to (pick a date) July 10th – and her line published that day “Victoria was the only one who went it alone and didn’t use the uniforms, either police or military, and they’ve got themselves in a spot of bother.”
Only thing is West Australia was entirely using Private Security (240 guards in 5 hotels) until an announcement on July 24th (by premier McGowan) and as confirmed by Linda Reynolds (Fed Defence Min) 50 ADF members only entered Q Hotels in WA on August 3rd. This date (August 3rd) is confirmed by Federal Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds (via her press release in response to Andrew Crisp).
(Interestingly – McGowan only found out that week, July 20th, that he COULD access ADF for Q Hotel security…..and not that he wasn’t using ADF – he had over 250 including over 150 on Border Controls).
Sooooo…….how good an investigative journo is she (she’s NOT qualified, she’s a ‘journalist’ by ‘name’ but not by nature) if she can’t get a basic fundamental fact correct – a key fact that she bases pretty well ALL of her attack on at present???
I won’t make any guesses of her motivation….but if she’s so interested with the ‘truth’ then she should actually start from a truthful position.
She was wrong on July 10th and 3 months later she’s still wrong and still pushing the same narrative that she’s subscribed to (hmmm…..the Murdoch narrative and we know that Murdoch stable of media outlets has precious little regard for truthfulness).